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In other words, the kid in the junk car driver's seat whose immigrant father had four weeks of schooling ultimately journeyed beyond his childhood dreams. He hadn't anticipated counseling U.S. presidents.

"A president that felt that the right wing was very adamant toward him would call," Miranda says, referring to Bill Clinton. "I was representing probably a centrist position to see if, in any way, we could assist in changing the image of his administration with the group [Hispanics] that we might be closer to than he was." Then again, he says, Clinton and both Bush presidents have consulted him mainly on issues of immigration and faith-based organizations.

Occasionally, he has also prayed with them, he says. "I was there on September 20th, the morning of the evening that President Bush was to speak to the nation after 9/11."

Miranda is "one of our national evangelical heroes" for bringing together Hispanics of discordant denominations, generations, and nationalities, says Raymond Rivera, president and ceo of the Bronx-based Latino Pastoral Action Center.

"Even though he belongs to the old guard in the sense that he's not part of the baby boomer generation, he's very open and has been a bridge between his generation and the baby boomers and the Generation X," Rivera says. "He's also been a bridge between the evangelical, Pentecostal, and Catholic churches."

AMEN, the networking organization of Protestant lay and clerical leaders Miranda founded in 1994, represents 27 denominations, 70 parachurch agencies, and 22 nationalities across the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada. AMEN built an alliance with Catholics unprecedented in the Hispanic world when it worked with renowned scholar/priest Virgilio Elizondo for a three-year study on Latino participation in public life.

"You're seeing history today, because here we are," Miranda told 120 Hispanic leaders of evangelical, Pentecostal, and Catholic stripes earlier this year at a conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss results of the study. "What we have in common is a people—Latinos—rather than focusing on theology and other differences."

Appealing to Hispanic bloodlines for unity while respecting legitimate theological differences comes naturally to Miranda. A Pentecostal church in the barrio may have set the course of his life, but he is quick to list the biggest influences in his life as his Catholic father and his mainline Protestant mother.

"My parents were my first mentors, even in reconciliation," he says. "I remember I was 13 or 14, and I said, 'Dad, Catholics never read the Bible,' because I never saw him read it. 'Mother, you read the Bible but never come to the Book of Acts.'

"And then they would turn around and say, 'And you Pentecostals never leave the Book of Acts.' So I saw my shortcomings and I saw differences. Yet we loved and respected one another so that we really enjoyed our fellowship. And we all affirmed one another."

Miranda learned early that the church is the primary force uniting a community. His name is often attached to ministries of reconciliation, but he sees himself primarily as builder of bridges among parties unknown to each other.

His starting point has always been joining the church to the community. In order to better connect the Latino community, last year he jumped from Azusa Pacific University, where he was the Graduate School of Theology's associate dean of urban and ethnic affairs, to the smaller Vanguard University.

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September 9 2002, Vol. 46, No. 10